


After

by FortySevens



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Frank's meditations on Karen's makeup, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot Collection, Prompt me, Self Care, Slice of Life, Thin on things like plot, frank loves dogs, opinions on home renovation shows, quarantine fic, this is what happens when enablers enable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-17 02:29:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21046805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FortySevens/pseuds/FortySevens
Summary: All the ways in which Frank finds an after with Karen, a one-shot collection.Chapter 7: Tumblr prompt: Kastle + coffeeChapter 6: Tumblr Prompt Generator - Hooking chin over shoulder, on floor, concernChapter 5: Tumblr Prompt Generator - playing with hair, couch, for the first timeChapter 4: Road RashChapter 3: Man and Man's Best Friend





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> While this originally was going to start as a home for the short fics I wrote while on a cruise to Mexico, everyone's favorite enabler, ck90, accidentally prompted me over on Tumblr (I'm fortysevenswrites) the other day, and so I figured I should put together a one-shot collection, and then challenge myself to accept prompts that won't take me down the rabbit hole of long-fic.
> 
> As of right now, every chapter is self-contained and considered complete, and I will add more chapters over the coming days.
> 
> While the plot bunny hutch is SUPPOSED to be full, I am, apparently, open to prompts, so go ahead over to Tumblr and do that thing.

**5 Things Frank Learned From Sephora**

When it comes to women, there are a LOT of things Frank knows he doesn’t know.

Makeup is one of those things that ranks high on the list.

Maria didn’t always wear makeup, because she was so busy running around after the kids while he was away, but she’d do herself up on the odd date night they’d be able to wrangle. She had a drawer in the vanity in their bathroom full of compacts and brushes and lipsticks and, well, stuff, that he just knew never to touch, because she had a _system_.

With Karen though, it’s a little bit of a different story.

Karen does her makeup every single morning, without fail. It’s all part of her routine, just like groaning at her alarm when it goes off and drinking two cups of black coffee before she can even think about functioning, let alone getting ready for her day.

  
He may be the reason she hits the snooze button often enough to make Nelson call wondering what the holdup is some days, but that’s an entirely different story.

With him pretty much moving into Karen’s little apartment, Frank learns more about makeup brands and shapes and prices, and the black and white Sephora website than he ever imagined he’d have to know. But Karen barely has time to do what she needs to do when she’s getting herself into shit with Red and Nelson, so it’s not like she can just go to Sephora every time she needs something.

So, every few months when they’re curled up on the couch, the lights turned off and the television on low, Karen will prop her laptop on her legs and fill her shopping bag with hundreds of dollars of—he doesn’t even know.

Stuff.

And okay, yes, maybe he does pick up a thing or two—or five—listening to her grumble about foundations or pressed powders or the ridiculous price of the shitty bronzer palette that crumbled the last time she bought it and therefore never again, even when it goes on sale, because she’s not that desperate.

**Foundation**

The first thing Frank learned about Karen’s makeup routine is that she has a bitch of a time finding foundation that matches her skin tone.

Now, the number of different brands of foundation and the number of different shades of foundation each brand offers are enough to make Frank’s head spin, but apparently, for someone who is as pale as Karen is, actually finding a foundation that matches is nigh impossible.

Something about how Ivory isn’t actually ivory and every shade of Porcelain she’s ever tried is a lie.

And the one brand she found that matches her the closest in the winter—when she’s at her palest—it’s the crappiest of crapshoots if her obscure shade is actually in stock. When it’s not, means mixing her summer shade, and often layering it with some gauzy pressed powder that Frank understands even less than her liquid foundations.

In the evenings, when they’re in the kitchen cooking dinner, the light will hit her forehead in a way that highlights the silvery, T-shaped scar she picked up during the mess with Wilson, which hasn’t faded as well as he liked, as serves as a reminder of just how close he was to losing her.

He doesn’t like to think about that.

When Karen notices his attention trained to that spot on her forehead, always rolls her eyes, fond, and kisses the frown off his face.

**Blush**

Frank does not understand the point of blush.

He never has.

Why would you slap on a ton of foundation to make your face all one color, just to change up certain parts of your face anyway?

But Karen makes putting on blush into an art, highlighting the apples of her cheeks, and making her look as flushed and lively as she ever does, and especially when she’s pissed at him.

He likes frustrating her, makes a game out of getting a rise at her, because he loves the spark in her eyes and the way she matches him, word for word and strike for strike.

Of course, no amount of foundation and other makeup artistry can hide the way she flushes all the way down to her throat, especially late at night when Frank kisses her neck and helps her pull her blouse from her skirt.

And by the time they’re done, curled up in her bed with the sheets tangled around their legs, her makeup is not the cause of the flush to her cheeks.

**Mascara**

Karen insists her eyes disappear when she doesn’t wear mascara.

She says it’s a curse of being blonde, a curse of having eyes and lashes that are pale enough that they barely stand out from the rest of her pale features.

Frank’s never noticed.

Those early mornings when she blinks bleary eyes at him, mashes her face into her pillow to avoid having to get up for a few more minutes, and all he sees are the dark blue of her irises, and the way her pupils are dark and round until she adjusts to the light coming in from the window next to her bed, the window he keeps to his back when he sleeps.

When she puts on mascara though—and it never occurred to him that it was actually brown, rather than the shade of black Maria used to favor—it somehow makes her eyes even bigger, and rounder and even more beautiful.

Of course, the day Karen found out that her favorite brand of mascara was going to be discontinued, well, let’s just say she was one rant away from sending him out to punish the marketing team—and the only thing that _really_ stopped him was the fact that they’re not based in the U.S., and it’s not exactly possible for either Frank Castle _or_ Pete Castiglione to travel internationally.

Fortunately, Karen does end up finding a suitable _dupe_, whatever the hell that is.

It’s half the price of her usual brand though, so—Frank guesses that’s a win.

**Eyeliner**

Karen doesn’t always go heavy with her eyeliner, but it is one of the places where she gets most creative with her makeup—perks of having blue eyes, she tells him one morning, early on in their relationship as he leaned against the doorframe to her bathroom, coffee in hand as he watched her go through her routine.

Most days, Karen uses just a little brown liner between her lashes to connect her mascara, and together it makes her eyes look bright and round.

But then—then there are the other nights she uses eyeliner to create a little more drama.

When it’s girls night with Jones, Walker, Sarah, Madani, Nurse Temple, Nelson’s shark of a fiancé and Red’s resurrected ninja-girl—which, Frank isn’t even going to remotely go there on that one—Karen goes all out, playing with colors, layering one over another, or spending an absurd amount of time trying to make the pointy cat-eye even.

At the end of girls nights, after he and Lieberman help the all girls stumble home from the corner booth at Josie’s, Karen’s eyeliner makes rainbow-like smears on the little cotton pads she uses to take her make-up off. The remnants trail down her cheeks until she washes it off with the fancy cleanser she splurges on because she’s, quote, _in my thirties Frank, wrinkles are something I want to avoid for as long as humanly possible_.

Sometimes, when it’s the right time of year, and the right time of the morning, Frank will wake up to see a few stubborn pieces of cosmetic-grade glitter clinging to her eyelids and down to her cheeks, making her glow in a way that almost convinces him that she’s got some magic in her.

Well, of course she has magic in her.

The glitter just highlights it.

**Lipstick**

Karen doesn’t wear much lipstick, but that doesn’t stop her from having an entire drawer in her bathroom dedicated to it, nor does it stop her from coming home on the rare days where she _does_ make it into Sephora, leaving the boutique with the back of her hand and inside of her wrist covered with lipstick swatches.

Frank doesn’t ask, just watches as she takes an oil-soaked cotton pad—one that she usually uses to remove her eye makeup—and rub at the swatches until they disappear, leaving her skin pink and shiny.

Somehow, she even has a shade of lipstick—one of her daily standbys—that actually matches the way her skin flushes when she rubs those swatches off.

Frank finds signs of her lipstick everywhere, on the rim of her favorite coffee mug, blotted on tissues in the bathroom trashcan, on the collar of his shirt when sloppy couch makeouts turn into slow, gasping sex sprawled across the foot of her bed, and on the rim of the bottle of dark, hoppy beer they share after.

But his favorite is when she breaks out the dark, vampy red shades, the ones she reserves for the nights out that are just for them, when they sneak out of the city to have a quiet dinner and they can pretend that they’re not The Punisher and one of New York City’s biggest shit magnets.

When Karen does break out the ’date night’ shades, she always kisses his cheek or his jaw or his ear before they leave, always wipes the smear of lipstick left behind with her thumb.

And on the mornings after Karen breaks out the ‘date night’ shades, Frank often stumbles into the bathroom and finds smears and leftover lipstick prints on his collarbone, his chest, and down to the cut of his hip.

So, yeah, there are a few things about Sephora that Frank can appreciate.

Just a few.

He’s still not going to set foot in there if he doesn’t have to.


	2. The Farce

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s been six weeks, three days, and four and a half hours since the farce of a funeral.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first of three short, predominantly plot-less fics that I wrote while on my Mexican Riviera cruise this month. None of these fics are beach-inspired, just written on beaches. While wearing leggings. And sitting under an umbrella. As one does. I don't do well in sunlight.

It’s been six weeks, three days, and four and a half hours since the farce of a funeral.

Frank has had a bag packed and waiting by the door of his apartment for six weeks, three days, and two hours since the farce of a funeral.

Even though he knows full well that it was a farce, everything about the situation sets Frank on edge, leaves him as tightly wound as he ever was back in the days when he was deployed.

If he could, he would have been long gone once the ceremony was over, after watching from the rooftop across the street from the church, after seeing Nelson, Red, and Red’s apparently-no-longer-dead girlfriend leave for the wake, but that would have been the reddest of red flags, and as much as he hated it, he knew it.

So he stayed put, and did what he did.

It’s been the longest six weeks, three days, and four and a half hours of his second life. It’s almost like it was when he was waiting for those last few weeks for his deployment to end, but even then, it’s really not the same.

Not at all.

And while it just about kills him, Frank keeps to his routine, just as he was told to do.

Even so, he’s got Red up his ass every other night, reminding him that this isn’t carte blanche for him to just do what he does indiscriminately, but Red doesn’t know shit about where Frank’s line is—only that it’s far on the other side of the one Red is willing to cross.

In this case, putting down who he needs to put down is more than within what he can and should be doing. The bare minimum, were this whole mess is concerned, really.

Frank sleeps when it’s daytime, and kills scumbags when they come out to play every night, drinks his weight in black coffee and tries to stop his trigger finger from its endless twitching by reading the latest in the endless list of literary classics Curtis keeps shoving his way.

That last one definitely doesn’t work, so he puts most of his focus on killing as many gangbangers and drug runners and traffickers as he can.

It’s cathartic, but not as cathartic as it used to be—he tries not to think about that too much either.

But now, he just has to get through one more night, and he can leave. He can be where he’s wanted to be since he got the call from Nelson telling him Karen was in the hospital, badly hurt because Fisk’s psychotic former lapdog escaped his imprisonment and set his sights on her before anyone knew the wiser.

The way Nelson tells it, Karen wouldn’t have made it through the night had it not been for some kind of intervention that no one is entirely clear on from Red’s ninja-girl, so at least Murdock was finally good for something.

Nelson also tells him that the only reason Frank got a call was that Karen insisted someone reach out to him, because the last thing Hell’s Kitchen needed was for The Punisher to go on a rampage for no reason.

Because he would, if Karen was really dead, especially at the indirect hand of Wilson Fisk.

He definitely, definitely would.

And now he just has to get through one more night.

It’s one of the longest nights of his life.

When morning finally comes, Frank showers off the blood—mostly not his, except for a couple scrapes he picked up falling through a window in a warehouse by the docks, which, no big deal, he’s had much worse—takes the bag that’s been mocking him for the better part of the last two months and tosses it in his truck, drives out of the city before sunrise.

He’s got the coordinates almost seared into his brain, but let’s the GPS do most of the work the last third of the drive, because there’s a large part of him—one that _nags _at him relentlessly—that can’t help but think that this is all just some fever dream, and Karen won’t be there when he gets to the safe house Red’s ninja-girl owns.

It wasn’t safe enough for him to go see her before they spirited her out of the city, not with everyone waiting to see what Fisk’s next move is going to be, so all he knows is that she’s alive enough to not still be in the hospital, but—

That’s not enough.

Eventually, after too many miles and too many hours, he drives into a small, suburban neighborhood out in BFE, Pennsylvania, where the houses are large, but no too large, with big front yards with green, green grass. He parks in the driveway of the third house on the right.

It’s not until he’s pulling his bag out from the back that he notices movement from inside the house, a fluttering of the curtains covering the big front window that is too intentional for just the force of an air conditioning unit.

Seconds later, the front door swings open, and—

There she is.

Karen’s right arm is in a cast and Frank sees the telltale bulge of this bandages wrapped around her opposite shoulder. She’s favoring her side as she makes her way down the stairs to meet him in the driveway, and Frank tries not to think of what happened to her, because all that will do is make him see red, and there’s no point in that right now.

He meets her halfway, dropping his bag, and between one blink and the next, he’s gathering her in his arms.

It’s the best thing he’s felt in a long damn time.

“Hi Frank,” her voice is a little raspy and it kills him a little that he doesn’t know why.

Was her throat damaged in the attack? From the hospital stay? Has she been sick? Or is the raspiness just a product of no one being around for her to talk to for weeks?

Fuck, he should have been there.

“Jesus Karen,” he squeezes her tighter. “You scared the shit out of me with that stunt of yours. If Poindexter wasn’t already-“

Karen pulls back, her blue eyes sparking a bit in the midday sunlight, “I handled it Frank, like I always do.”

That’s true.

And it always has been.

He cups the side of her head in his hand, fingertips threading through her hair, “I know you can sweetheart, but you shouldn’t have had too.”

“I shouldn’t have had to put up with a lot of things,” she says, pointed. “But it happens.”

Guilt gnaws at him, and the last thing he wants to reckon with is the last time he saw her, last year in the hospital with a 5 million-dollar contract on his and the girl’s asses, the one time since he’s known her where he actually lied to her face.

“Karen, I-”

She shakes her head, hand fisting in his shirt at his waist, drawing him closer to her, “I almost died a few weeks ago, it doesn’t matter anymore.”

On a sigh, Frank drops his forehead to hers, brushes his nose against the side of hers, “Of course it matters.”

To his eternal surprise, Karen laughs, “It really, really doesn’t,” she pulls back a little, but only enough so she can rest her head on his shoulder, and she heaves a heavy sigh as he feels her rest a little more of her weight against him. She’s tired, he can see that clear as day, knows he needs to get her inside and off her feet. “How long can you stay, Frank?”

Frank turns his head, presses his mouth to her temple, “How long do you want me to stay?”

“You can’t answer a question with another question,” she huffs with a watery laugh, and he holds her tighter to him.

“I’m here Karen. And I’m not going anywhere. Okay?”

She nods against his neck, “Okay.”

And what’s better, she actually sounds like she believes him..

Frank knows he has a lot to make up for, but this is a start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always the ask-box over at fortysevenswrites on Tumblr is open for prompts.


	3. Man and Man’s Best Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Did you just compare me to the dog?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to story number two from the Things Kathryn Wrote On Her Way Down To Mexico series! 
> 
> This one was 10000000% inspired by THIS video I saw floating around Tumblr somewhere with this really cute black pit bull begging for pets: https://fortysevenswrites.tumblr.com/post/188385911749

“Oh my god, it’s like there’s two of you.”

Karen looks away from the inky dark eyes gazing up at her, to the similarly dark pair staring up at her from her couch, and back again.

“Did you just compare me to the dog?”

The dog in question—little more than a puppy, really—has its paws wrapped around her thigh as it stares up at her, unrelenting hope in its eyes that she’ll share some of the cheese she was munching on before the peace in her apartment was unceremoniously invaded by Frank and his new, four-legged friend.

It’s really not too dissimilar to the time Frank came back into her life, begging for her to help him get information about Micro.

“You better appreciate this,” Karen mutters under her breath as she breaks off a slice and lets the dog lick it off her fingers before she looks back at Frank, who has moved the bag of peas he appropriated from her freezer off his cheek. “Well, you know what they says about dogs matching their owners.”

Frank’s scowl is further highlighted by the darkening circles under his eyes, and Karen shakes her head, nods with her chin down at the small black pit bull now sitting obediently by her feet, whipcord thin tail racing back and forth against the kitchen floor, “So, where’d you find your girlfriend?”

“Chased her through Metro General with a sawed-off.”

“You think you’re so funny.”

“Know I am.”

Karen rolls her eyes, “Where’d you find the dog, Castle?”

He shrugs, but he looks away from her, which is _telling_, “Found her sniffing around near your old offices.”

The neutral look on her face devolves into a scowl, “And _why_ were you lurking around Nelson’s Meats tonight?”

Again, Frank shrugs, and he pointedly looks in the direction of her window, where the pot of daisies he brought home last week are turned orange by the streetlights outside, “No reason.”

Now, Karen loves the men in her life, she really does, but sometimes _she wants to strangle them._

“Is _no reason_ going to show up to work with a broken nose on Monday?”

“Maybe just a bruised jaw.”

Karen heaves a sigh, breaks off another bite of cheese for the dog before sealing the leftovers and putting them in the fridge, “Dare I ask?” she mutters as she makes her way to the couch, trails her fingertips over the edge of the bruise forming under Frank’s left eye. “Or was this just posturing, again?”

The scowl on Frank’s face is enough to tell her that Matt probably interrupted him and his plans for murder tonight, which—depending on who he was going after, that may or may not have been a good thing.

Frank tugs her down on the couch next to him, and she drops the peas on the coffee table before throwing her legs over his lap, “Well then,” she clicks her tongue and the puppy trots over on its massive paws, which means she has a _lot_ more growing to do. “Got a name for this one?”

The dog hops up onto the couch with them, scrambling a little to get her hind legs on the cushion until Frank helps her up the rest of the way. She licks his cheek before settling into a ball on Karen’s thigh, but most of her body rests on Frank’s chest, “Name means I’m keeping her,” he says even as he pets her, his large hand dwarfing most of the dog’s head.

Karen snorts and runs her palm against the dogs belly, feels way too many of her ribs and makes a mental note to pick up some dog food before going into the office tomorrow, “And yet you wouldn’t have brought this adorable little thing here to my apartment, where you spend most of your time, I might add, if you didn’t want to keep her, at least just a little bit.”

Glancing up out of the corner of her eye, she sees Frank’s cheeks go dark under the bruising, so—_bingo_.

The hand not on the puppy’s head slides under her shirt and spreads out over her lower back, “I know living in the city and having a dog ain’t easy, but-“

“But you want to keep her.”

Frank shrugs, “She reminds me of this pit I rescued from the Irish, before Red got me arrested,” he rolls his eyes at that, but—without Matt getting him arrested, they never would have met, so—not the worst thing to happen. Plus it did also involve a much-needed trip to the hospital. “I tried to find her again after I got out of prison, but-well, you know how things go with strays sometimes.”

Especially stray pit bulls, yes, Karen does know.

She settles more of her weight against Frank’s chest, tucks her head against his shoulder, “I mean, I guess we can have her start coming with me on nights I’m working, when you’re busy with those side projects Madani has been throwing at you.”

“‘s a good thought,” he says lightly.

Too lightly.

Karen rolls her eyes and pokes him in the side until he squirms and grabs her fingers, “All right Castle, you win,” she says as he laces their fingers together, his thumb stroking up and down the side of hers. “But you’re also in charge of house-training her.”

With a laugh, she feels Frank shift before his mouth presses to her forehead, “Yes Ma’am.”


	4. Road Rash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I feel like I still have gravel up my ass,” Frank grumbles into her collarbone as they lie on the couch, Karen stretched across the cushions with Frank sprawled out on his stomach on top of her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been sitting on this for a couple weeks--my latest program launch has taken over my life a bit--but here is the third of three stories written during the cruise week in Mexico. 
> 
> But since this is hurt/comfort, I wanted to get this in while it was still Whumptober--and I've got a little less than an hour and a half left.

“I feel like I still have gravel up my ass,” Frank grumbles into her collarbone as they lie on the couch, Karen stretched across the cushions with Frank sprawled out on his stomach on top of her.

He’s not going to be able to sleep on his back for a few days.

Let alone sit.

Karen isn’t exactly clear on what all happened tonight—she rarely ever is with him, but that’s all part and parcel of their relationship, such as it is—except that it had something to do with a few rogue bikers and ended with Frank somehow getting a serious case of road rash.

His vest may be great at stopping bullets, but it only covers so much of his lower back.

It’s been a few hours since Frank stumbled into her apartment, jeans in tatters and scrapes trailing both up his back and down to his thighs. The oversized first aid kit she keeps under her bathroom sink is spread out across her coffee table, pieces of bloodied gauze scattered about the space, along with bandages and an uncapped tube of ointment.

Even if she wanted to, she can’t clean it up right now.

But also—she doesn’t really want to.

Karen sighs and runs her nails through the short hairs at the nape of his neck the way he likes, “That’s what happens when you piss off some already pissed off bikers. You make them angry, they try to run you down, you—get stuck and dragged a block and a half between some warehouses.”

“That’s not what happened.”

Karen rolls her eyes, digs her fingertips harder in to the nape of his neck, “Then what happened?”

Shuddering against her, Frank snorts, shifting a little before resettling with his forehead against her neck, “They were getting into a turf war with the new Kitchen Irish, making a mess. And it was only half a block, not a black and a half.”

“I’m sure it was all very uncomfortable, but you handled like you always do,” she muses, shifting a little to take some pressure off her lower back.

She reaches down for the blanket thrown haphazardly over Frank’s backside, mostly because it’s cold, and pulls it away to check, “Looks like your legs have finally stopped bleeding,” she trails her fingertips over his lower back until his leg twitches.

“Hey,” Frank nips the side of her neck in admonishment. “Don’t tease the wounded.”

“Clearly you’re not all that wounded,” she smooths down one of the pieces of tape securing a large square of gauze to the high side of his right butt cheek. “And you know the last thing I am is a tease.”

Frank grumbles, but resettles against her as Karen resumes the rhythmic petting of his hair, “‘m I crushing you?”

“You’re fine,” Karen squeezes the nape of his neck until some of the tension that she could feel building in his shoulders releases, and he melts into her just a little more. “You going to take it easy the next few days?”

“You going to give me a choice?”

“Definitely not,” she turns, presses her mouth to the side of his head, lingers there and breathes him in, smells a little sweat, cordite, and just a little bit of blood—so, Frank. “You’re allowed to take a break every once in a while, you know.”

Frank huffs again, “I guess,” he worms his hand between her back and the couch cushions, digs his knuckles in until some of the pressure in her back releases further. “That okay?”

“Yeah,” she groans against his head, shifting so his hand rests a little lower on her back. “That’s good.”

“I can get up, if you want.”

She shakes her head, still stroking her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, “Not just yet.”


	5. Tumblr Prompt Generator: playing with hair, couch, for the first time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If you’re not going to sleep, at the very least, you’re going to watch a nature documentary and relax for a couple hours.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For mycanonnevercame, who prompted me, AND I WROTE ACTUAL FANDOM WORDS FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE LIKE...APRIL! 
> 
> Thanks for the enabling Emily!

Frank is exhausted.

Karen doesn’t need to look at him to know that, but even if the only indicator was the look on his face and the slump of his shoulders, it would be clear as day.

She knows he’s had a long week—Lisa’s birthday was three days ago, so between the buildup to it and the actual day, Karen knows sleep has been the last thing Frank’s mind is letting his body do.

He’s tried to rest—or well, so he’s told her, but Karen also knows that despite their commitment to honesty, especially after the whole Billy mess, Frank doesn’t always tell her everything at the moment that it’s relevant.

“Come on,” she sighs with more than a little exasperation in her tone, nodding in the direction of the couch. “Go sit down.”

Frank arches a brow but doesn’t protest, bringing their beers with him and leaving them on the coffee table as he settles on the somewhat deflated cushions of her second-hand couch.

Turning the lights off in the kitchen, Karen passes by the couch, sees Frank’s eyes follow her and he asks, “What?”

“_What, _what?” She snarks back as she turns off the lamp in the entryway, leaving them in darkness save for the glow of her television and the light pouring in from the window facing the street. “If you’re not going to sleep, at the very least, you’re going to watch a nature documentary and _relax_ for a couple hours.”

Even through the dimness, Karen sees the skepticism on Frank’s face as she plops on the couch next to him, but he does let her manhandle him until he’s lying on his side with his head on her lap, a sigh gusting over her thighs as he gets comfortable.

She settles on hand on his shoulder while the other grabs for the remote and cues up Netflix, and even though it takes a minute, she eventually feels Frank relax against her, just a little bit.

“Nature documentary? Really?” Frank asks as she pulls it up.

“My first thought was that new realty series about selling massive beach houses in the Hamptons, but I figure you and I both need something that’s going to be a little less—you know—blood pressure raising. This is not a night for us to air out our differing opinions on interior design aesthetics.”

Frank turns his head and snorts against her thigh because he knows it tickles, even through her leggings, “It’s not my fault your opinions on open versus closed-concept are wrong.”

“_You’re_ wrong,” she grumbles back, flicking his ear as she adjusts the volume so it’s low enough that they can hear it without it being too loud.

Karen settles into the couch cushions as the television shows of endless beautiful vistas of nature not seen anywhere near the urban sprawl of New York City, her fingertips trailing in nonsensical patterns over Frank’s shoulder. After a few minutes, he eventually relaxes enough that his shoulder drops, _finally_.

Reaching up to scratch an itch on her jaw, Karen doesn’t look as she drops her hand back down, this time landing on the side of Frank’s head, and she doesn’t think about it as she slides her fingertips into his hair. It’s longer than it’s been in a while—Frank’s admitted he doesn’t like it as long as it is, prefers the high-and-tight, even though it’s too recognizable for him to get away with.

Frank relaxes even more against her as she strokes her fingers through his hair—it’s dark and calm and quiet and this is something she’s never imagined she’d get with Frank, to get to this place, _period_, but there’s no way in hell she’s not going to embrace this moment to its fullest.

She slides her hand higher stroking gently through his soft hair until—

Until she stumbles against a scar on the side of his head.

The one on his temple, she’s lost count of how many times she’s touched that one, but the first one—the one that almost killed him, she hasn’t touched that one before.

Freezing up against him, Karen tries to slide he hand away until Frank grunts and mutters, “Why’d you stop?”

“Oh, um—I uh, your scar,” she winces at the complete and total lack of coherence of any of that.

On her lap, Frank turns a little to look up at her, “Didn’t even notice. Can’t really feel much around it. You can keep going.”

That last part was—well, a very pointed suggestion.

She settles her hand back in his hair, her thumb running back and forth over the side of his head, edging over his scar on every other pass, “This okay?”

“Yeah,” Frank nods into her lap, then grabs the hand in his hair, pulls it down to press her pulse point to his lips before resettling it on his head. “Yeah, ’s good.”

So Karen keeps up the gentle stroking, not flinching even when her fingertips pass over his scars because Frank doesn’t either, and if he falls asleep after a half-hour, well, it’s not like that wasn’t the _plan_ all along.


	6. Tumblr Prompt Generator: Hooking chin over shoulder, on floor, concern

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re working too hard, sweetheart.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to this anonymous asker for the prompt!

“You’re working too hard, sweetheart.”

Karen blinks, startled out of her reverie by Frank’s comment, “Huh?”

“Do you even know what day it is?”

Looking up at him over her laptop, Karen snorts, “I leave this apartment once every other week to go grocery shopping, a truly thrilling forty-five minutes of my life, and sometimes I have Zoom meetings with Matt and Foggy, where you make it a point to scowl menacingly over whatever book Curtis has you reading this week. Days of the week are irrelevant.”

“_Karen_.”

“Well, what else am I supposed to do with my days, stuck at home in quarantine because our government refuses to get its shit together and squash this fucking virus?”

Frank’s brow ticks, pointed, and Karen rolls her eyes, tosses a crumpled napkin from her lunch in his direction, which, being a napkin, lands on the floor nowhere near where he is, “I know you’re basically superhuman, but you and I both know we can’t spend _all_ of our time doing _that_.”

“We could try,” Frank mutters under his breath while he eases his way onto the floor where she’s been camped out since this morning, settling behind her and just off to one side.

Karen nearly knocks into Frank’s chin as she laughs, and he tugs her back against him with a good-natured grumble, hooks his chin over her shoulder. Settling back into him, Karen nudges her cheek against his temple, “I don’t think I’ve taken a day off work since I moved to New York. I even went back to work after the mess with Lewis.”

“_Goddamnit Karen_.”

Oh yeah.

It’s only in this moment that she remembers she never actually told him that.

Her bad.

She shrugs, “Ellison said the exact same thing when he realized I was in my office. He made me go home after I finished my article—but I still count it as a workday.”

Frank scrubs a palm over his face before he drops down to squeeze her shoulder, “You really can’t keep this up, Karen. It’s not healthy.”

“Because you and I are the poster children for healthy coping mechanisms.”

“_Karen_,” he sighs, but doesn’t say anything else, and she has a feeling that he just doesn’t know _what_ to say to make things better.

Is there anything that _can_ be said?

Leaning away from the coffee table, Karen snuggles even deeper into his embrace, “I just don’t know _how_ to stop anymore. Even in this shitshow of a pandemic—what do I do if I’m not working?” She sighs, shakes her head as much as she can without smacking into Frank. “Fuck, that’s really not good, is it?”

“Nah,” Frank says, but he keeps his tone light as he takes her hand, twines his fingers with hers and props them on her thigh. “But you know what you have now?”

“What’s that?”

“Someone to make sure you take a goddamn break every once in a while,” Frank reached out with his free hand and pushes the lid of her computer down, tugging Karen back against him when she tries to open it back up. “Nope, you’re done.”

Karen turns in his arms so she can look him in the eye, “I need to finish that.”

He tips his forehead into hers, “It can wait.”

“It kind of can’t,” Karen tries to reach for her computer, but Frank both tugs her away and scoots them away from the table in a feat of—she doesn’t even know how he managed to do that, chalks it up to his weird marine-sniper reflexes because what the hell else could it be? “Matt’s waiting on that file.”

She knows what he’s going to do as she says it, wrinkling her nose when he rolls his eyes, “_Murdock_ sure as shit can wait.”

“Oh come on,” she pokes his chest. “You two have been getting along so much better lately.”

“Because there’s no crime for _either_ of us to fight these days without getting exposed to the virus.”

Karen rolls her eyes again, “_And_ because you’re getting along better.”

“I _respect_ him,” he says like there’s a difference. “But he’s still a jackass.”

“You keep saying that, but I keep hearing, _you know, after many years of putting up with him, I’ve finally come to realize he’s not that bad_.” 

Frank digs his fingers into her waist, and she squeals and tries to get away, fails miserably, because—well, _marine-sniper reflexes_.

Flopping to the side in attempt to get away from him, she ends up on her back on the floor with Frank lying over her and he finally, blessedly stops tickling her before she pees her pants.

There’s a moment where Karen lies there, catching her breath as Frank looks her in the eye before tipping his forehead against hers.

Finally, Karen sighs, “Okay fine, you win, we can spend the rest of the afternoon having sex.”

Frank kisses her, “I always knew you were smart.”


	7. Warmth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr prompt from mycannonevercame: Kastle + a cup of coffee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who needs one paragraph when you can have…this many paragraphs?

“Thank you,” Karen says as Frank presses a steaming mug of coffee into her hand, shivers as the warmth seeps into her chilled skin.

It’s absolutely freezing outside—to make matters worse, the heating was on the fritz in the NM&P offices most of the day—and there’s nothing Karen wants more than to change into sweats and curl up under every blanket she owns.

Frank wraps her up in his arms, rubs his palms up and down her back until she stops shivering so much that she feels like she’s about to rattle out of her skin.

Tucking her head against the warmth of his neck, Karen shifts just enough so she can sip at her coffee, “What should we do for dinner?”

“Already taken care of,” Frank says, hands moving up to her shoulders and pushing her away from him, just enough so he can look her in the eye. “Go get changed. It’ll be here in a minute.”

Karen smiles with her mouth closed, which makes her nose wrinkle, “You’re so good at this. Thank you.”

Cupping her cheek in his broad palm, Frank taps his forehead to hers before kissing her once, quick, “Anytime sweetheart.”

**Author's Note:**

> Like I mentioned, hop on over to FortySevensWrites on Tumblr and prompt me. I don't know how long it's going to take, but hey, eventually will get here...eventually.


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